Tributary system of China
The tributary system of China, or Cefeng system at its height was a network of loose international relations centered around China which facilitated trade and foreign relations by acknowledging China's hegemonic role within a Sinocentric world order. It involved multiple relationships of trade, military force, diplomacy and ritual. The other states had to send a tributary envoy to China on schedule, who would kowtow to the Chinese emperor as a form of tribute, and acknowledge his superiority and precedence. The other countries followed China's formal ritual in order to keep the peace with the more powerful neighbor and be eligible for diplomatic or military help under certain conditions. Political actors within the tributary system were largely autonomous and in almost all cases virtually independent.
Scholars differ on the nature of China's relations with its neighbors in traditional times. Many describe a system that embodied a collection of institutions, social and diplomatic conventions, and institutions that dominated China's contacts with the non-Chinese world for two millennia, until the collapse of the system around the end of the 19th century. Other scholars like Odd Arne Westad see a variety of relationships that differed in character, not an overall "tributary system". They suggest a Sinocentric system, in which Chinese culture was central to the self-identification of many elite groups in the surrounding Asian countries. By the late 19th century, China had become part of a European-style community of sovereign states and established diplomatic relations with other countries in the world following international law. While some scholars have suggested that the tributary system is a model for understanding international relations in East Asia today, other scholars have argued that the concept is misleading about relations in both early modern times and today.
Definition
The term "tribute system" is a Western invention. There was no equivalent term in the Chinese lexicon to describe what would be considered the "tribute system" today, nor was it envisioned as an institution or system. John King Fairbank and Teng Ssu-yu created the "tribute system" theory in a series of articles in the early 1940s to describe "a set of ideas and practices developed and perpetuated by the rulers of China over many centuries." The concept was developed and became influential after 1968, when Fairbank edited and published a conference volume, The Chinese World Order, with fourteen essays on China's pre-modern relations with Vietnam, Korea, Inner Asia and Tibet, Southeast Asia and the Ryukyus, as well as an Introduction and essays describing Chinese views of the world order. The model presents the tribute system as an extension of the hierarchic and nonegalitarian Confucian social order."Tribute", points out Peter C. Perdue, the historian of Qing dynasty foreign relations, is "the inadequate translation for gong, a term with multiple meanings in classical Chinese," since its "root meaning of gift giving from inferiors to superiors applied to all personal relationships...." Fairbank's concept of tribute system "turned a flexible practice with multiple meanings into an overly formalized ritual system" in which gong always had the same meanings and gong ritual was exclusively and predominately a marker of foreign relations, whereas the Qing conducted "many diverse forms of tributary ritual".
File:Zhigongtu full.jpg|thumb|center|900px|The Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang. Song Dynasty copy of 6th-century painting in National Museum of China. Tributary envoys from right to left: Uar ; Persia; Baekje ; Qiuci; Wo ; Langkasuka ; Dengzhi Ngawa; Zhouguke, Hebatan, Humidan, Baiti, who dwell close to Hephthalite; Mo. Original attributed to Xiao Yi.
In practice
Legitimacy
The "tribute system" is often associated with a "Confucian world order", under which neighboring states complied and participated in the "tribute system" to secure guarantees of peace, investiture, and trading opportunities. One member acknowledged another's position as superior, and the superior would bestow investiture upon them in the form of a crown, official seal, and formal robes, to confirm them as king. The practice of investing non-Chinese neighbors had been practiced since ancient times as a concrete expression of the loose reign policy.The rulers of Joseon, in particular, sought to legitimize their rule through reference to Chinese symbolic authority. On the opposite side of the tributary relationship spectrum was Japan, whose leaders could hurt their own legitimacy by identifying with Chinese authority. In these politically tricky situations, sometimes a false king was set up to receive investiture for the purposes of tribute trade.
Autonomy
In practice, the tribute system only became formalized during the early years of the Ming dynasty. Actors within the "tribute system" were virtually autonomous and carried out their own agendas despite sending tribute; as was the case with Japan, Korea, Ryukyu, and Vietnam. Chinese influence on tributary states was almost always non-interventionist in nature and tributary states "normally could expect no military assistance from Chinese armies should they be invaded".Tribute
The "tribute" entailed a foreign court sending envoys and exotic products to the Chinese emperor. The emperor then gave the envoys gifts in return and permitted them to trade in China. Presenting tribute involved theatrical subordination but usually not political subordination. The political sacrifice of participating actors was simply "symbolic obeisance". Nor were states that sent tribute forced to mimic Chinese institutions, for example in cases such as the Inner Asians, who basically ignored the trappings of Chinese government. Instead they manipulated Chinese tribute practices for their own financial benefit.The gifts doled out by the Ming emperor and the trade permits granted were of greater value than the tribute itself, so tribute states sent as many tribute missions as they could. In 1372, the Hongwu Emperor restricted tribute missions from Joseon and six other countries to just one every three years. The Ryukyu Kingdom was not included in this list, and sent 57 tribute missions from 1372 to 1398, an average of two tribute missions per year. Since geographical density and proximity was not an issue, regions with multiple kings such as the Sultanate of Sulu benefited immensely from this exchange.
After 1435, the Ming dynasty urged foreign delegations to leave and stopped offering transport assistance for visiting missions. The size of delegations was restricted from hundreds of people to less than a dozen and the frequency of tributary missions was also reduced.
The practice of giving gifts of greater value than the tribute itself was not practiced by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty court with Goryeo. Gifts conferred by the Yuan were worth a fraction of the tribute offered by Goryeo. Joseon paid the Qing dynasty multiple times per year and were coerced to receive hundreds of diplomatic missions, in turn granting the Qing great influence in their internal affairs, in comparison to Siam who would only send gold and silver to the Qing when requested by the court as a gift rather than a forced payment, often once every decade.
Culture
Participation in a tributary relationship with a Chinese dynasty could also be predicated on cultural or civilizational motivations rather than material and monetary benefits. The Korean kingdom of Joseon did not treat the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, which invaded Joseon and forced it to become a tributary in 1636, in the same way as the Han-led Ming dynasty. Joseon had continued to support the Ming in their wars against the Qing despite incurring military retaliation from the latter. The Manchus were viewed as barbarians by the Korean court, which, regarding itself as the new "Confucian ideological center" in place of the Ming, continued to use the Ming calendar and era names in defiance of the Qing, despite sending tribute missions.Another instance of shared cultural affiliation and attraction is Vietnam. Although tributary missions to China have been depicted in modern Vietnamese nationalist history as a cynical practice to appease China, "there is little proof of a consistent or extreme Vietnamese hatred for Chinese culture" throughout history. Instead, Vietnamese elites were generally favorable towards Chinese culture and political norms. A study of poems composed by Vietnamese envoys to China did not find any hostility held towards China but rather that they genuinely felt proud of being part of Sinic civilization. On the whole, Vietnamese elites prior to French colonization were thoroughly entrenched in Chinese culture. Most Vietnamese elites up to the 19th century do not seem to have written in anything other than Classical Chinese and even criticized attempts to nativise the Chinese script to represent the Vietnamese language. Knowledge of specific Chinese texts was considered to be the equivalent of historical literacy. As late as the 20th century, important Vietnamese literature such as Ho Chi Minh's poem Vọng Nguyệt, which recites the entire history of Vietnam, was written in Classical Chinese.
Meanwhile, Japan avoided direct contact with Qing China and instead manipulated embassies from neighboring Joseon and Ryukyu to make it falsely appear as though they came to pay tribute. Joseon Korea remained a tributary of Qing China until 1895, when the First Sino-Japanese War ended this relationship.
Rituals
The Chinese tributary system required a set of rituals from the tributary states whenever they sought relations with China as a way of regulating diplomatic relations. The main rituals generally included:- The sending of missions by tributary states to China
- The tributary envoys' kowtowing before the Chinese emperor as "a symbolic recognition of their inferiority" and "acknowledgment of their status of a vassal state"
- The presentation of tribute and receipt of the emperor's "vassals' gifts"
- The investiture of the tributary state's ruler as the legitimate king of his land